Art History (AHIST 1401) at UoPeople

Art History (AHIST 1401) is one of the electives you’ve to take at the UoPeople. I already have a degree in art from another university which now seems like a lifetime ago. Art History at the UoPeople is not an easy course by any stretch of the imagination. The reasons are that you have to read a great deal, and know about the history of various periods, specifically ancient Greece and Rome, Western Civilization, and Art History of Europe. I had an advantage in the class because I had read about the subject before. In the course, you basically learn about how art changed over time and how it was used for various means throughout history. 

My class had over 34 students, but many dropped out. It could be because my instructor was quite strict when it came to the APA citations. I didn’t have any issue with her. In fact, I quite liked her. She had an Ed.D. in history and anthropology and had been teaching at the UoPeople for quite a while. I read several negative reviews about her on the RMP website, but fortunately, she wasn’t one bit like what the reviews said. It could also be because I knew the subject so well that I didn’t see the darker side of her, which the reviews or other students I talked to on various platforms had implied. She was also very punctual and regularly graded the Learning Journals on Fridays and participated in the Discussion Forums to invoke critical thinking in students by asking questions.

It was probably the only class where no students other than me introduced themselves in the Course Forum. The instructor put up a post to introduce herself and encouraged students to do the same. But nobody apart from me did, which was very weird. I'm not sure why students chose not to take part in introducing themselves. I found that so surprising. It was also the class where I was the only student from the US. 

There is no prescribed book for this course. You learn everything from the links provided by the school. You've to write 5 Written Assignments in the class consecutively except for the Graded Quiz weeks, which can be quite cumbersome. The Discussion Forum and Written Assignments are 5% each (10% in total), but you’ve to read plenty of articles and research on your own to do well on them. Unless you know history, you would find the articles and links provided by the university a bit difficult to understand. The reason is that they aren’t on the elementary level and assume that you already have prior knowledge about history. I would suggest taking a crash course on YouTube if you’re in that boat. 

The Learning Journals are 20% and the exam and Quizzes are worth 70% of the grade. Critical thinking is required for most components of this course, but more so for the Learning Journals. Most of the time, you have to summarize/compare various concepts you learned in the week. My instructor had a fixed rubric, which explained how she graded students. I’m pleased to say that I always got perfect grades on the Learning Journals.

The Graded Quiz for unit 3 had 19 questions and you get 45 minutes to complete it. The Graded Quiz for unit 6 had 15 questions and you get 30 minutes to finish it. The Final Exam of Art History had 55 questions and you get 75 minutes to complete it. Most of the questions in the exam and quizzes asked about the features of each art period you study in the course, what originated in which art era, which artist helped develop what genre of art, and so on. The non-Graded Quizzes and the Final Review Quiz prepares you well for the Graded Quizzes and Final Exam. I suggest creating notes on significant things that happened in each art period and features of each era. I also recommend doing Review Quizzes multiple times before the Final Exam/Graded Quizzes. 

I ended up getting an A+ in the course. It’s also one of those fulfilling classes that allowed me to introduce and put my own works of art into the assignments. Most of the time, my classmates and instructor were quite impressed by them. If you create some form of art, I would encourage you to think out of the box and integrate art pieces in the assignments to compare various types of art that you're asked to describe in the class.